i know it's only rock & roll but i like it…

tom petty wraps 2013 tour in minneapolis

The last night of a tour is a beautiful thing. And the last night of Tom Petty’s tour was no exception. Tom and the boys closed out their 12-city summer tour at the Target Center in Minneapolis this past Saturday and they went out swinging.

This tour was an interesting mix of festival dates, a few arenas, and two extended-runs at theaters in New York and LA. With no album to promote the Heartbreakers were free to wander through their massive back catalog and unearth material that hasn’t seen a live crowd in years, and in some cases, decades. The creative energy unleashed by the smaller extended run shows was clearly on display Saturday night as the packed arena crowd was treated to rarities like the Wilbury brainteaser “Tweeter & the Monkeyman,” and Southern Accents’ “Rebels.”

The band was clearly in a good space. The playing was tight as ever but the attitude on stage was definitely loose. Mike Campbell grinned straight through the first several songs, interacting with the front row and reveling in the tremendous energy of the crowd.

In addition to the deeper cuts, the band dutifully played a hefty number of the hits that send arena crowds through the roof. They delivered a scorched-earth version of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” that was the absolute best I’ve ever heard that song. A growling “I Should Have Known It” was the only Mojo-moment of the night. In a nod to the nostalgia that was stirred up on this tour Tom prefaced encore closer “American Girl” by announcing “We’re gonna end things where we started.”

With the tour wrapped the band is now back in California and will be heading back into the studio to finish up a new as-yet-unnamed album. They haven’t set a release date for it, but I’m already dreaming of a Tom-filled 2014 summer…

As usual, I took exactly one video of the concert and it clocks in at a whopping 17 seconds. Cameo by my sister :)